Two Sides of the Same Coin
Following my little marathon through the No More Heroes series, we have the second numbered title: Desperate Struggle. Serves as the direct continuation of the events of the first game, while not really having some of the elements that made the first entry so famous in the first place. Personally I immediatily noted the difference from the beginning, having a more eerie and mysterious presntation, at first. This game talks about consequences and the perpetual-neverending cycle of violence, which are themes that already were touched in No More Heroes. It's all view from a different perspective this time.
No More Heroes 2 starts off with a bomb...not a literal bomb but the death of Bishop, which if you don't remember was the guy that sold you wrestling tapes in the first game. Travis is heavily affected and looks up to Sylvia for answers, she tells Travis to join the rankings again, this time they're official. Travis once again is locked with a promise that may or not be fullfiled at the end, getting to the top is the only way of getting that answer. It pretty much is the first game plot, all over again. Just more of the same, right?
Desperate Struggle and No More Heroes are two sides of the same coin. At their core they're the same, a 3D hack and slash game but the two differ from each other in tone, themes, presentation, variety and overall direction. It made me appreciate aspects of the original that I totally overlook, and made me appreciate some of it's changes to the main formula as well. I talked a bit about expectations in the first game, how they easily suberted most of what you could expect from the title, making it somewhat unique even at the time of it's release. Desperate Struggle however, is much more in your face narratively speaking. No More Heroes had underling themes that for the most part went unnoticed at first, but once digging on a deep analysis you'll start to know why things are the way they are. The sequel aims, for something that appears to be a continuation of it, without any of it's merits. You see, the first game story was hidden within each boss personalities and how this affected Travis through it's adventure maturing in the meaningless business of killing and death. This time they tried something different, it's all about the show and spectacle through the superficial and the instantly gratifying moments, when it comes to the bosses at least. Because there are several flaws within No More Heroes 2 narrative structure that goes in all kinds of different ways just to end up in the same road, overcomplicating the unnecessary and making what could've been a good story fail because of it.
But it's not all doom and gloom. Desperate Struggle came with a ton of changes for the possitive as well, one instant example I can think of is the gameplay. This time around it looks more presentable and it's much more enjoyable, well, at least for me. It is a huge improvement from a presentation standpoint while still retaining what made the original mechanics so addicting in the first place. It's also expanded by giving you the opportunity to have up to different 4 sword in your personal blade arsenal. Another remarkable aspect is the music, at least compared to the first it blows out the water. It's not that the original compositions were bad really, this time is a matter of showing up their talent. Several well known composers were hired to make this game music score, it's a night and day difference from variety, instrument and even lyrics are present such as the case of: "It's Kill or be Killed" or "Phillistine". It truly is a solid score that I wasn't expecting to enjoy this much. They also did a great job expanding the already established universe with returning characters of the past game, serving as an indication of Travis progression. We start to know more about certain characters that for better or for worse were shrouded in mystery in the first game. Most of these aspect I just mentioned I thought were objetively good changes, not just for Desperate Struggle alone but for the No More Heroes franchise as a whole.
Different for the worst, too. It lost some of the charm of the original. in my review of the first game I mentioned how tedious most of the work to gain money was, never realising that well, even being a tedious slog it's a good distraction from the base game that also served as one of the main incentives for the story as well, outside of killing the main bosses. This time in Desperate Struggle we have a case of oversimplification without wanting to really fix the issue in hand, take for example the Open World. Santa Destroy's city while not the best, had it's charm and that could've been fixed with an honest approach but they take it all out in favor of player feedback. You know, players sometimes don't really know what they want and that was the easy way out of the problem, just get rid of it. As much as I disliked No More Heroes Open World, it was a good base for things to come but they ditched it. For better or for worse, you get the ranked battles instantly. The Minigames are not gone though, but they were replace by 8-Bit representations of set job. Think about the Coconout Collector minigame in the original but in 8-Bits, that's pretty much it. They're a lot of fun honestly and I prefer it over the original to some extent. Now that money isn't a issue to enter the rankings, it's not that important now outside leveling Travis stats up. Again, this sequel is much more in your face so it somewhat makes sense to make most aspects that people at first found annoying or unnecesary in the first game streamlined to get to these best parts instantly. The Bosses also suffer a case of slight case of simplification across the board. Aside from increasing the numbers of it, their significance quality decreased immensely. As I said before in No More Heroes most bosses had their own personal motives ways of seeing life, death in battle. This was a constant and for the better part of it, in Desperate Struggle I didn't really found a partciular reason that instantly spoke me. Sure, their personality was set by just the looks of the presentation alone, but outside of it their motives were hard to read in the little screentime each of the assasins, most of them shine again from presentation alone. Which again, can be a good thing or not compared to the original title.
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle leaves me with a sense of just being confused of what really wants to be. Strive to be better than it's older brother? Or just be something different and first the apparent flaws the original have? The original game wasn't planned to have a sequel to begin with, it was a round work that surprisingly worked in favor of Grasshopper Manufacture from a business perspective and a sequel was inevitable to keep the series momentum afloat. Suda51 was credited in No More Heroes 2 as an Executive Director while busy in a lot of other projects at the same time. While this doesn't leave a clear indication of what he specifically did in this project in particular, we can just guess his involvement wasn't as prevalent as in the first No More Heroes 2 and others decided to took the role. No More Heroes while being a flawed game in my eyes, it was a brilliant take on the meaningless and the mundane that is life and death. Desperate Struggle wants to be different, but how different can you from something that is too unique and centered to begin with? Fix what the original did wrong, just on the superficial aspects of it and change it enough to make it feel different. Just not really understanding what made the original click in the first place. It's like going from Resident Evil 4 to Resident Evil 6, from Dark Souls to Dark Souls II, from Max Payne to Max Payne 3.
Not a bad game by any means, but it is a dissapointing evolution that tried to be like it's older brother. Older brother isn't perfect nor correct, but was authentic.
Following my little marathon through the No More Heroes series, we have the second numbered title: Desperate Struggle. Serves as the direct continuation of the events of the first game, while not really having some of the elements that made the first entry so famous in the first place. Personally I immediatily noted the difference from the beginning, having a more eerie and mysterious presntation, at first. This game talks about consequences and the perpetual-neverending cycle of violence, which are themes that already were touched in No More Heroes. It's all view from a different perspective this time.
No More Heroes 2 starts off with a bomb...not a literal bomb but the death of Bishop, which if you don't remember was the guy that sold you wrestling tapes in the first game. Travis is heavily affected and looks up to Sylvia for answers, she tells Travis to join the rankings again, this time they're official. Travis once again is locked with a promise that may or not be fullfiled at the end, getting to the top is the only way of getting that answer. It pretty much is the first game plot, all over again. Just more of the same, right?
Desperate Struggle and No More Heroes are two sides of the same coin. At their core they're the same, a 3D hack and slash game but the two differ from each other in tone, themes, presentation, variety and overall direction. It made me appreciate aspects of the original that I totally overlook, and made me appreciate some of it's changes to the main formula as well. I talked a bit about expectations in the first game, how they easily suberted most of what you could expect from the title, making it somewhat unique even at the time of it's release. Desperate Struggle however, is much more in your face narratively speaking. No More Heroes had underling themes that for the most part went unnoticed at first, but once digging on a deep analysis you'll start to know why things are the way they are. The sequel aims, for something that appears to be a continuation of it, without any of it's merits. You see, the first game story was hidden within each boss personalities and how this affected Travis through it's adventure maturing in the meaningless business of killing and death. This time they tried something different, it's all about the show and spectacle through the superficial and the instantly gratifying moments, when it comes to the bosses at least. Because there are several flaws within No More Heroes 2 narrative structure that goes in all kinds of different ways just to end up in the same road, overcomplicating the unnecessary and making what could've been a good story fail because of it.
But it's not all doom and gloom. Desperate Struggle came with a ton of changes for the possitive as well, one instant example I can think of is the gameplay. This time around it looks more presentable and it's much more enjoyable, well, at least for me. It is a huge improvement from a presentation standpoint while still retaining what made the original mechanics so addicting in the first place. It's also expanded by giving you the opportunity to have up to different 4 sword in your personal blade arsenal. Another remarkable aspect is the music, at least compared to the first it blows out the water. It's not that the original compositions were bad really, this time is a matter of showing up their talent. Several well known composers were hired to make this game music score, it's a night and day difference from variety, instrument and even lyrics are present such as the case of: "It's Kill or be Killed" or "Phillistine". It truly is a solid score that I wasn't expecting to enjoy this much. They also did a great job expanding the already established universe with returning characters of the past game, serving as an indication of Travis progression. We start to know more about certain characters that for better or for worse were shrouded in mystery in the first game. Most of these aspect I just mentioned I thought were objetively good changes, not just for Desperate Struggle alone but for the No More Heroes franchise as a whole.
Different for the worst, too. It lost some of the charm of the original. in my review of the first game I mentioned how tedious most of the work to gain money was, never realising that well, even being a tedious slog it's a good distraction from the base game that also served as one of the main incentives for the story as well, outside of killing the main bosses. This time in Desperate Struggle we have a case of oversimplification without wanting to really fix the issue in hand, take for example the Open World. Santa Destroy's city while not the best, had it's charm and that could've been fixed with an honest approach but they take it all out in favor of player feedback. You know, players sometimes don't really know what they want and that was the easy way out of the problem, just get rid of it. As much as I disliked No More Heroes Open World, it was a good base for things to come but they ditched it. For better or for worse, you get the ranked battles instantly. The Minigames are not gone though, but they were replace by 8-Bit representations of set job. Think about the Coconout Collector minigame in the original but in 8-Bits, that's pretty much it. They're a lot of fun honestly and I prefer it over the original to some extent. Now that money isn't a issue to enter the rankings, it's not that important now outside leveling Travis stats up. Again, this sequel is much more in your face so it somewhat makes sense to make most aspects that people at first found annoying or unnecesary in the first game streamlined to get to these best parts instantly. The Bosses also suffer a case of slight case of simplification across the board. Aside from increasing the numbers of it, their significance quality decreased immensely. As I said before in No More Heroes most bosses had their own personal motives ways of seeing life, death in battle. This was a constant and for the better part of it, in Desperate Struggle I didn't really found a partciular reason that instantly spoke me. Sure, their personality was set by just the looks of the presentation alone, but outside of it their motives were hard to read in the little screentime each of the assasins, most of them shine again from presentation alone. Which again, can be a good thing or not compared to the original title.
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle leaves me with a sense of just being confused of what really wants to be. Strive to be better than it's older brother? Or just be something different and first the apparent flaws the original have? The original game wasn't planned to have a sequel to begin with, it was a round work that surprisingly worked in favor of Grasshopper Manufacture from a business perspective and a sequel was inevitable to keep the series momentum afloat. Suda51 was credited in No More Heroes 2 as an Executive Director while busy in a lot of other projects at the same time. While this doesn't leave a clear indication of what he specifically did in this project in particular, we can just guess his involvement wasn't as prevalent as in the first No More Heroes 2 and others decided to took the role. No More Heroes while being a flawed game in my eyes, it was a brilliant take on the meaningless and the mundane that is life and death. Desperate Struggle wants to be different, but how different can you from something that is too unique and centered to begin with? Fix what the original did wrong, just on the superficial aspects of it and change it enough to make it feel different. Just not really understanding what made the original click in the first place. It's like going from Resident Evil 4 to Resident Evil 6, from Dark Souls to Dark Souls II, from Max Payne to Max Payne 3.
Not a bad game by any means, but it is a dissapointing evolution that tried to be like it's older brother. Older brother isn't perfect nor correct, but was authentic.